October 22, 2012

I don't watch debates since they are too annoying -- this one even more so, since foreign policy debates are mostly about playing to an abjectedly ignorant voter segment. I did like this 'question not asked' for Romney, from FP:

Japan is about to replace China as America's biggest creditor. Could you please offer us [your plan for] "getting tough with Tokyo?"

September 1, 2011

That Chinese anti-satellite test was pretty bad/unfriendly/unneighborly. I don't usually complain about China, but I do hold this against them, especially considering the follow-on avalanche issue. Nature reports:

The threat of space junk has reached a tipping point, and NASA’s programmes to evaluate those risks are underfunded and understaffed, says a National Academies report released today.

The panel, tasked with evaluating NASA’s orbital debris programme at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, notes that the problem of orbital debris -- which, whether natural or man-made, can rip apart spacecraft -- may have reached a critical point. In 2007, China used an anti-satellite missile to blow up a weather satellite, creating about 150,000 particles larger than one centimeter. Two years later, an accidental collision between two satellites added to the mess. Taken together, the two events more than doubled the amount of fragmentation debris in Earth orbit (see chart). There are now more than 16,000 objects larger than 10 centimeters in the public catalog of tracked objects -- and there are modeling scenarios in which this number will now increase on its own accord, as existing space junk is pulverized into ever more particles in a runaway, snowballing process.

The National Academies panel says that budget, management structure and personnel for the orbital debris office have not kept pace with its responsibilities, and the panel recommends that the office develop a strategic plan that would address gaps in research. Moreover, the panel advises NASA to develop a database of spacecraft anomalies that are probably due to particles too small to be tracked, and that this data could be used to upgrade models that estimate impact risks.

But the panel also wants the office to begin thinking about ways to clean up the mess -- and envisions a day when that task could be as important as any other major NASA programme. According to the panel, NASA should, alongside the US State Department, begin to evaluate the legal framework through which it could go about collecting, moving or destroying space junk. The United States is responsible for roughly 30% of the objects in orbit. Any NASA clean-up would be limited to just those items, since current legal principles restrict nations to salvaging only their own objects.

April 3, 2011

Jeez, I certainly hope not. But David Sanger's reporting today tells us that at least some in the White House saw it that way:

The mullahs in Tehran, noted Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, were watching Mr. Obama's every move in the Arab world. They would interpret a failure to back up his declaration that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi had “lost the legitimacy to lead” as a sign of weakness — and perhaps as a signal that Mr. Obama was equally unwilling to back up his vow never to allow Iran to gain the ability to build a nuclear weapon.

“It shouldn't be overstated that this was the deciding factor, or even a principal factor” in the decision to intervene in Libya, Benjamin J. Rhodes, a senior aide who joined in the meeting, said last week. But, he added, the effect on Iran was always included in the discussion.

That is truly embarrassing. We got ourselves mixed up in Libya because the President foolishly said that Gaddafi had to go and if Gaddafi didn't go, we'd look weak to the Iranians? OK, as Ben Rhodes, insists, it probably wasn't the "deciding factor," but if it was any sort of factor, it's...pathetic.

This sounds like the sort of thing you say if a) you don't know what your talking about, b) you're trying to persuade people who watch Fox news (including, maybe, Republicans in Congress). Sadly, a) strikes me as more likely given who Donilon is, but then again, he does have experience dealing with Republicans in Congress, less so with the rest of the world.

I've been wondering about the qualifications of National Security advisor Thomas Donilon for some time, it doesn't strike me as having the right background...how did he, a seven year veteran of Fannie Mae's Congressional relations, get there? Donilon being National Security Advisor only makes sense if dealing with Congress is the main issue for US foreign policy. Which, on consideration, might actually be true...food for thought. And yes, he was chief of staff for Warren Christopher and Democrats do need to earn a living when Republicans are in power.

May 2, 2010

I'm not quite sure why Greece should pay its debt -- the debt service on public debt should come out somewhere around --- well, I don't know exactly, I should try to find this out, though the range of uncertainty is high in any case -- around 4% 9% or so of GDP, or more [9% was my original guess without research, but I then decided to tone down that estimate, undercutting my point in this post, but now see Aslund's number below, which I suspect reflects semi-official estimates], forever. At bit odd, since this is the key number. It's not clear to me that paying that much, plus the costs of raising this sort of money via taxation, is worth what Greece is getting out of this deal. This could/should, if Greece gets it act together or if it fails to get its act together, come out to a renegotiation game. But that may be a bit down the line: Greece is still in primary deficit and doesn't yet have an incentive to default. That happens when Greece goes into primary surplus. Say late 2010 or early 2011?

I should figure out what the underlying numbers are...ah, here is a spreadsheet with forecasts from the first half of April: that has Greece going to primary surplus in mid to late 2011. So that when the next crisis should crop up, since that's when the incentives for Greece paying reverse.

This program would leave Greece with a public debt of 140 to 150
percent of GDP in 2014, which will be far more than Greece can finance.
Assuming an interest rate of 6 percent per annum, this would amount to
9 percent of GDP in debt service each year. No country can manage such a
burden. Greece needs a debt restructuring. It would be reasonable to
write off approximately half the public debt of $400 billion—that is,
$200 billion. The Greek financial crisis is not likely to be resolved
until that is done. The euro countries and the IMF are simply lending
into arrears.

A transfer to foreigners of 9% of GDP per year paid out of tax revenues forever isn't going to happen.

Update #2: is there any commentary out there that thinks this plan is going to stick as is? I've not seen it, though I assume the German official commentary is that this plan can be made to stick. On the other hand, it could just be the opening salvo in a fight over how much Greece will actually pay and one can see why German and France aren't going to low ball themselves at the beginning of this long drawn out process.

November 3, 2009

via Legal Theory Blog, I see that Daniel Halberstam and Christoph Möllers have some harsh/shrill criticism of the German Constitutional Court. I sort of follow this as a topic, but mostly because I don't know how it will come out.

In announcing the decision of the Bundesverfassungsgericht (“Federal
Constitutional Court” or “FCC”) on the constitutionality of the Lisbon
Treaty, the Presiding Justice of the Second Senate summed up the
judgment by proclaiming: “The German Basic Law says “yes” to the Treaty
of Lisbon.” The decision has since received much praise from
commentators for having struck down only the existing version of an
accompanying federal law while preserving Germany’s ratification of the
Treaty more broadly. The decision is thus likened to another act of
judicial cooperation, the FCC’s 1992 decision on the Maastricht Treaty.

This short comment explains what is old and what is new about
the FCC’s current decision about Europe. The comment exposes the FCC’s
highly deceptive invocation of having taken a “Europe-friendly” stance
in interpreting the German Basic Law. The discussion exposes the myriad
contradictions within the opinion and the decision’s strange
consequences both in terms of the concrete workings of the European
Union and in terms of its grand theory of democracy. The comment
highlights the FCC’s mistaken understanding of the European Parliament,
the profound failure of the Court’s reflexive idea of state
sovereignty, and the way in which the opinion condemns Europe to a
perpetual state of deficiency. In all this, the Federal Constitutional
Court installs itself as the sole arbiter of Germany’s constitutional
destiny - even above the people themselves.

A subversive opinion with more twists and turns than even the
FCC itself comprehends, the decision ultimately stands as a crude
speech act asserting little more than the power of the Court itself.

To quote: ...well, I was going to quote, but the pdf is causing problems with formatting if I cut and paste.

The decision doesn't seem that bad to me, it mostly seems to require that the German people voice their desire to transfer aspects of sovereignty to the EU more explicitly, not clearly a bad thing and maybe something you'd expect constitutional courts to require. If the court tries to gum up that process to much there might be a problem, but I don't see that yet. This isn't the US supreme court.

September 13, 2009

I disagree with both Noah Millman and Fouad Ajami. We did
not go into Iraq after 9/11 because we had to make a huge military
demonstration somewhere, no matter how implausible the aims (Millman); nor did
we want to teach "the Arabs" a lesson (Ajami). Cheney, Bush and
company had long had Baghdad in their gunsights -- 9/11 was merely an opportunity,
just as WMD was merely a cover. And as far as a general antipathy towards
"the Arabs", I never saw that in the Cheney/Bush policies, and I
certainly never saw that in Bush personally -- in fact he seemed rather close
to the Saudi royals.

No, we went into Iraq to fulfill a longer range strategic
vision: Surround Iran. Defend Israel. Secure the oil.

And why should we be aghast at that?

That's what empires do:
Surround their enemies. Defend their Holy Land. Secure their vital
resources. Hardly surprising that the American Empire would do any
different.

What is surprising is the sheer incompetence with which it was done.

Which seems about right. I have a lot of sympathy for getting in position to fight for access to oil and holding down nuclear armament by non-nuclear powers, but you need to do so in a manner that doesn't cut again your ability to get the job done. Why, as the reader above points out, Obama is a good thing. Which for some reason people like our CT neighbor don't get...

July 25, 2009

Who would have thought. Or maybe not, who knows? via Larison. Here is the start of the WSJ reporting on its interview with Biden:

Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview that Russia's economy
is "withering," and suggested the trend will force the country to make
accommodations to the West on a wide range of national-security issues,
including loosening its grip on former Soviet republics and shrinking
its vast nuclear arsenal.

Mr. Biden said he believes Russia's economic problems are part of a
series of developments that have contributed to a significant
rethinking by Moscow of its international self-interest. The
geographical proximity of the emerging nuclear programs in Iran and
North Korea is also likely to make Russia more cooperative with the
U.S. in blocking their growth, he said.

But in the interview, at the end of a four-day trip to Ukraine and
Georgia, Mr. Biden said domestic troubles are the most important factor
driving Russia's new global outlook. "I think we vastly underestimate
the hand that we hold," he said.

"Russia has to make some very difficult, calculated decisions," Mr.
Biden said. "They have a shrinking population base, they have a
withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not
likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a
situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging
to something in the past that is not sustainable." ...

Despite Russia's economic and geopolitical difficulties, Mr. Biden
said, Moscow could become more belligerent in the short term unless the
U.S. continues to treat Russia as a major player on the international
stage. He said Russian leaders are gradually beginning to grasp their
diminished global role, but that the U.S. should be cautious not to
overplay its advantage.

"It won't work if we go in and say: 'Hey, you need us, man; belly up
to the bar and pay your dues,' " he said. "It is never smart to
embarrass an individual or a country when they're dealing with
significant loss of face. My dad used to put it another way: Never put
another man in a corner where the only way out is over you."

April 1, 2009

As a list of important countries goes, the G20 list is actually pretty good -- I cannot think of any country that ought to be included but isn't. Saudi Arabia was the only surprise to me and it is nice to see Indonesia getting recognized. A new world and not your important summit from even ten years ago (even if the first G20 summit occurred in 1999).

March 29, 2009

MY writes on the American disadvantage in dealing with foreign political elites who know much more about US politics than American policy makers know about the politics of most foreign countries, in this particular case Pakistan.

[D]uring the FDR and Truman years, American elites were generally more
familiar with Europe than European elites were with the United States.
I think that’s an important element in understanding why the
institution-building of that era largely worked.

March 21, 2009

One of the biggest flaws of the sanctions literature has been the
failure to discuss unintended consequences. Humanitarian costs have
been raised above, but what about other side effects? Peter Andreas
looks at the consequences of the multilateral sanctions directed at the
former Yugoslavia during the 1990s and finds a disturbing legacy.
Economic sanctions, it turns out, can unintentionally contribute to the
criminalization of the state, economy, and civil society of both the
targeted country and its immediate neighbors. By trying to evade the
sanctions, private entrepreneurs and public officials are encouraged to
disregard the rule of law. This fosters an unhealthy symbiosis among
political leaders, organized crime, and transnational smuggling
networks. These criminal networks can persist even after sanctions are
lifted, contributing to public corruption and undermining governance.

Andreas appears to have a whole slew of publications on this and related topics.